been baking: Plain Scones

There are hundreds of different flavoured scones to experiment with; chocolate orange, cheese, apple and my usual fail-safe buttermilk, but sometimes like yesterday, when the rain poured down non-stop and the sky never quite lightened, only a big butter scone smothered in clotted cream and strawberry jam will do.

The Scone
225g self-raising flour
1 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
50g softened salty butter
120ml milk
pinch of salt

Sift the flour into a bowl and mix in the sugar and salt before adding the butter. With your hands rub the mixture together until it looks like breadcrumbs. Using a butter knife gradually mix in the milk to make a dough, you might not need to use all of the milk but if the mixture is looking dry don't worry about adding extra milk. It's worth using a knife to mix the dough to give the scone a crumbly texture when it's baked.

Lightly dust a rolling pin and baking surface with flour and roll out a wedge of dough to roughly 2cm thick. Cut out the scone shapes, you should get about six scones out of the dough. Brush a little milk over the top of the scones and bake for 10-15 minutes. Scones harden quickly when cooled so it's best to eat them while they are warm.